ICT and Religious Tradition. The Case of Mount Athos

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2008 in the subject Information Management, London School of Economics, language: English, abstract: Information and communications technology (ICT) is understood to be closely associated with the shaping of late modernity. It constitutes one of its fundamental and distinctive features and is a product of its socioeconomic institutions. Yet, it is increasingly taken up by traditional communities. The core question of this paper is whether the encounter of ICT with cultures that have not embraced the values and ways of life of modernity gives rise to alternative perceptions and enactments of socio-technical ensembles. Do traditional communities disentangle the ICT artefact from the institutional context of modernity and appropriate it in their own culture and social order? Is there a potential fusion of ICT with non-modern cultures that leads to transformative effects of either the endogenous culture or the taken-for-granted 'modern' meaning of ICT value? Or is the take up of ICT, loaded with the meanings and values it inhe rited in its context of modernity, just eroding traditional culture and bringing them closer to modernity?

We address this question by exploring the meanings and consequences of ICT in the community of monasteries on Mount Athos that was established in Byzantine times and remained largely isolated from most institutions of modernity. This is an early stage in what we intend to make longitudinal research, and our finding are inconclusive. We found a mix of attitudes and ICT- related practices among the monks and different attitudes towards the information processing/storage and the communication functions of ICT. But overall, adoption of ICT is increasing on Mount Athos and we identify areas in which potential changes are under way and which merit further research. However even at our current stage of research it is apparent that these changes are intrinsically different in our modern consumerist society and are largely shaped and constrained by Christian religion.